I watched Louis Theroux: Into the Mansphere last night.
If you haven’t seen it, the basic idea is that Louis Theroux wanders into rooms full of men who have somehow managed to turn being extremely online and extremely confident into a career.
This is impressive. Not the confidence part. The career part.
And it struck me that in the age of AI, in the middle of what feels like a full-blown gold rush, we are about to see a fresh wave of this. A surge of snake oil salesmen.
While watching it, I realised something. Once you see the pattern, you can’t unsee it.
The names change, the platforms change, the slogans change, but the underlying operating system is always remarkably similar.
So, purely in the spirit of public service, here is a quick field guide.
Multiple failed attempts at attention
Almost every grifter has a long pre-history of trying to become famous.
If you dig back far enough you’ll find a graveyard of previous identities:
Fitness guru.
Health food guru.
Crypto visionary.
Marketing expert.
Podcast philosopher.
Productivity ninja.
None of them quite worked.
Then one day they stumble onto the magic combination: anger, certainty, and an audience that is already annoyed about something.
Suddenly the algorithm loves them and a new persona is born.
The inner circle test
A classic move.
If you disagree with them, you are not simply wrong. You are weak. Or lazy. Or a “chump”.
This is clever because it reframes disagreement as personal failure.
It also creates the feeling of an elite club.
Inside the circle: the enlightened.
Outside the circle: the losers.
Humans are extremely vulnerable to this technique because for most of our evolutionary history being excluded from the group meant you were about to be eaten by a tiger.
Rage bait as a business model
The content is designed to make people angry.
Angry people share things.
Angry people comment.
Angry people quote-tweet.
This creates the illusion that the person saying the outrageous thing is “winning the debate”.
In reality they are just running a very efficient engagement machine powered entirely by human irritation.
I’ve been on the receiving end of this myself online. The pile-on. The bad-faith swarm. The invitation to roll around in the mud and call it debate. Which is why the old line feels about right: never wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty, and the pig likes it.
In the end, the only move is usually to block, disengage, and starve the whole thing of oxygen.
A philosophy that mostly leads to their bank account
On the surface there is always a philosophy.
It might be about masculinity. Or productivity. Or freedom. Or discipline. Or “being a professional”. Or “telling hard truths”.
But if you follow the logic long enough it tends to arrive at a very familiar conclusion.
Step 1: The world is broken.
Step 2: Everyone else is weak or stupid.
Step 3: Fortunately I have the answer.
Step 4: It costs £49 a month.
Deep insecurity disguised as certainty
A striking feature is how absolutely certain they are about everything.
Economics. Psychology. Society. Relationships. History. Biology. The future of civilisation.
All delivered with the shouty certainty of someone who has personally fact-checked the entire universe.
But scratch the surface and there is usually very little intellectual curiosity.
They are not interested in learning. They are interested in performing certainty.
Blaming everyone else while preaching agency
Another reliable pattern.
They will spend hours explaining how society, institutions, governments and “the system” are responsible for everything that is wrong.
Then, in the very next sentence, explain that you must take full personal responsibility for your life.
This contradiction is rarely examined, mainly because the audience is busy nodding vigorously.
Cult-like followers
Eventually the grifter develops followers who behave less like an audience and more like missionaries.
They defend the leader.
They repeat the slogans.
They swarm critics.
If someone questions the central figure, the response is rarely curiosity. It is usually something along the lines of:
“You just don’t get it.”
The background check problem
If you start digging into the history of these figures, it is very often… colourful.
Failed ventures.
Failed agencies.
Burned bridges.
Former collaborators who quietly disappear.
It is less of a career path and more of a trail of small explosions.
The destruction trail
Another thing you begin to notice is the wake they leave behind.
Communities fracture.
Projects collapse.
People who once worked closely with them quietly move on.
But somehow, in the official story, none of this is ever their fault.
The disappearing act
The final stage of the grifter lifecycle is surprisingly consistent.
One day they are everywhere.
The next day they are gone.
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